Research too difficult for Crikey blogger

Climate non-expert Tim Flannery speculates on the possible effect of reducing emissions:

If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.

Flannery later refines his speculation:

If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.

And yet more Flannery speculation:

In his letter to The Australian, Professor Flannery wrote that if all major emitters adopted a similar level of effort to reach a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, and continued to "decarbonise" after that date, the global temperature rise would be capped at 2C later this century and that temperatures would begin to drop by the end of the century.

It's obvious that Flannery's position on the benefits of emissions reductions is fluid, at best.

In the midst of this confusion Tony Abbott seizes on Flannery's 1,000 year prediction:

But yesterday, as the role of the carbon tax in Labor's massive loss in the NSW election dominated federal political exchanges, Mr Abbott quoted Professor Flannery as he ridiculed the tax as "the ultimate millenium bug".

"It will not make a difference for 1000 years," the Opposition Leader told parliament. "So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years."

PP boy Jeremy Sear ignores Flannery's contradictory statements, instead homing in on Abbott:

What Flannery actually said:

If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years.

“Not going to drop” is clearly not the same as “make not a scrap of difference”. Nor is “several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years” the same as “not… any time in the next 1000 years”.

Had Jeremy researched this he'd know that Flannery did say that "global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years" yet contradicted himself by saying, in the words of The Australian, "that if all major emitters adopted a similar level of effort to reach a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, and continued to 'decarbonise' after that date, the global temperature rise would be capped at 2C later this century and that temperatures would begin to drop by the end of the century."

If Jeremy truly seeks to debunk "intellectual dishonesty" he should be attacking Flannery for making contradictory pronouncements on the benefits of emissions reductions rather than concentrating solely on Abbott's attempt to score political points. After all, Flannery has been put forward as an authority, whereas Abbott is merely a politician.